Acilisene, known as Ekegheats or Yekeghyats in Armenian, was a region of the Upper Armenia province of historical Armenia. It was a strip of land along the Upper Euphrates or Arsanias roughly corresponding to today's Erzincan Province of Turkey. Its main cities were Erznka (today's Erzincan, Turkey) and Ani-Kamakh (today's Kemah, Turkey) near the ancient necropolis of the Arsacid kings of Armenia.[1]
The Erznka valley, crossed by the Upper Euphrates, was the location of the most important pre-Christian shrine in Armenia, dedicated to the Armenian goddess Anahit. The temple, whose site has not yet been identified, was in a settlement called Erez. Because of its association with the goddess, the region was also called Anahtakan ('of Anahit', corresponding to the Latin Latin: Anaetica, itself from Greek, Ancient (to 1453);: Anaïtis, the name of the goddess in Latin and Greek classical sources).[2]
Under the Arsacid dynasty, it was one of the properties of the house of Gregory the Illuminator (the Gregorids) and was sometimes called Gavar Lusavorchi ('district of the Illuminator').[3]